Preparation and thermoelectric properties of N-type PbTe doped with in and PbI₂

Lead telluride is traditional thermoelectric material at middle temperature and widely applied for electricity generation. They have been attracting many scientists to research on. The paper reports an N-type PbTe materials with high thermoelectric performances based on the traditional halogen-doping mechanism with additional indium. The PbTe based materials doped indium and PbI ₂ are prepared by powder metallurgy technology. We use an intermediate frequency induced furnace for primary alloy preparation. The alloy shows very homogeneous with the desired composition. Then, the comminuted powder particles are hot pressed under certain temperature, pressure and so on. The prepared samples have been examined by FETEM and their thermoelectric properties have been measured. The results indicate that doping with the appropriate PbI₂ and indium leads to remarkable improvement of the thermoelectric properties, and we gained high figure of merit over a wide temperature range.